Get passport before heading to port

Maybe you're one of those people who's always traveled to soft- border countries, ones that didn't require a passport. And maybe you enjoy the freedom from tedious immigration lines and interviews that cruising in the Americas allows. And maybe you always planned to get a passport, but never got around to it because it wasn't a pressing issue.

Snap out of it. The party's over.

Way back in May, the nice folks at the State Department announced a phased plan to require U.S. residents to have a current passport to re-enter the country if they travel abroad. Under the plan, anyone traveling by air or sea to the Caribbean, Bermuda and Central and South America after Dec. 31 is going to need a passport. The deadline for travel to Mexico and Canada is one year later, and by the end of 2007, all border crossings will require a passport.

If you already knew all that, consider this a reminder that you have five months before that deadline -- as do the other 10.5 million people the State Department estimates will get a first passport this year. (About 60 million U. S. citizens have passports, or about 20 percent of the population, according to the State Department.)

Why is it a big issue for cruisers? Almost half of the industry's ships are in the Caribbean, Bahamas and Bermuda, according to the International Council of Cruise Lines, and of the 10.4 million people who cruised last year, 85 percent were from North America. More importantly, people tend to buy cruise vacations further in advance than other kinds of trips. If you're holding tickets for a trip in 2006 and do not get a passport, you aren't going.

Caribbean tourism officials have been quick to attack the apparent inequity of requiring the document for those sailing or flying to Grand Cayman, for instance, but not to Cozumel or Playa del Carmen, Mexico. The delay for Mexico and Canada travel, however, works in the favor of passengers on Alaska/Vancouver and Mexican Riviera voyages from the West Coast, who have an extra year to use their driver's license to get back into the country.

Surprisingly, not all cruise lines are being terribly conscientious about spreading the word on their Web sites. Carnival's site, for instance, has a statement from April that says passengers will probably need a passport and are "strongly urged" to get one, while Royal Caribbean makes no mention of the new rules and simply states that a passport is "highly recommended as it will speed-up your ship check-in formalities."

The glimmer of a loophole here is that the rules don't apply to U.S. territories. The bad news: You'll have a tough time finding a round-trip cruise that includes only Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam.

For information on the new rules and how to get a passport, go to travel.state.gov.

BC without AK: Celebrity Cruises is offering Inside Passage and British Columbia cruises that never make it to Alaska, opting to focus on Canada instead.

In late September and October, the 1,870-passenger Mercury will sail three-, four- and five-day round trips out of Seattle that visit some combination of Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo, Campbell River and Prince Rupert in British Columbia, as well as the Inside Passage and Astoria, Ore. Fares range from $350 to $500 per person, double occupancy; visit www.celebrity.com.

Hurricane tip: If you purchased shore excursions in advance, either online or through your travel agent, double-check that those will still be available if they're in ports that might have seen even minimal hurricane damage (for instance, Jamaica, Cozumel or Playa del Carmen). You don't want to get on the ship and have to start from scratch.

On the dock of the Bay: Large cruise ships expected at San Francisco's Pier 35 during the next two weeks: Regal Princess, Wednesday and Aug. 6; Crystal Harmony, Friday.